title

PAIRE DE STATUETTES YOROUBA PAIR OF YORUBA FIGURES

postlot

Ilobu, the small Yoruba town on the eastern border of the old Oyo Empire, housed many shrines for the orisa, the deities of the Yoruba pantheon. In the '50s and '60s, while teaching at the University of Ibadan, Ulli Beier traveled widely in southwestern Nigeria. He and his wife, Susanne Wenger, became fluent in the language of the Oyo Yoruba, developed a profound respect for the religious practices and beliefs, as well as for the artistic skills of carvers, weavers dyers and musicians among the people they met. The wisdom and wit of the rich oral traditions and the splendor of festivals enthralled them.

In 1957 Beier published a "Special Edition" of Nigeria Magazine entitled The Story of Sacred Wood Carvings From One Small Yoruba Town and in 1959 another "Special Edition" on A Year of Sacred Festivals in one Yoruba Town. The town was Ilobu where the districts or sub-groups of the Ilesha, Igbomina, and Oyo Yoruba met. Also in 1959 Beier and Bakare Gbadamosi published poems that they had collected in the area and translated for the publication Black Orpheus. Susanne Wenger provided eight silkscreen prints and ten vignettes.

In Ilobu, Beier visited many shrines, including those at the palace of the king, the Oba of Ilobu, where he saw "Orisa oba," the deity worshipped by the king, also known as orisa Erinle.Beier discovered that shrines to "orisa Erinle" where present in almost every household, although the names given to the ancient deity varied widely: Fayemi, Ondun, Asunara, Apala, Agbandada, Owala, Kuse, and others. This was not unusual or distinctive of Ilobu. During the 70s and 80s I was given multiple names for the same deity as I move from compound to compound in Ila-Orangun, an Igbomina Yoruba crowned town about fifty or sixty miles from Ilobu. The ritual artifacts were often similar and the praise songs or attributive names, oriki, contained identical passages. Festival dates would at times vary, but the reference to the deity was clearly to the same orisa: Shango, Ogun, Oshun, Eshu, Oko, Erinle and others. Devotees of one household would acknowledge the variation in practice and identity, but simply say: "That is way they do it!" In some instances the differences reflected the histories, itan, in a family's sojourn or in important persons remembered and celebrated by a family.

Ulli Beier was a meticulous scholar. He asked detailed questions about the origin of a shrine, the significance of the ritual artifacts, and the names and dates of the carvers of the many sculptures that graced a shrine. After photographing a shrine or particular objects that were removed out of doors so that he could have adequate light, Beier often wrote: "Carver and age not remembered." At times there would be someone who recalled that a particular carving was from Ibadan or a neighboring town, such as Oshogbo, Erin or Ila-Orangun. Objects traveled as persons moved from one town to another or when a well known carver in a nearby town or village was known for his skills and commissioned to carve for the king's shrine or that of a ranking chief. Indeed, on the palace shrine of the Timi of Ede there were at least thirty or forty remarkable sculptures that were the work of carvers from Ede and the surrounding towns including Maku of Erin (d.1927) or his son, Toibo (d.1937).

Then there were those rare instances when Beier was told: "Carved in Erin by Maku about 1900;" "Carved in Ilobu. Carver and age not remembered;" "...possibly carved by one of Maku's sons." In another note, Muku's son, Toibo, is cited as the carver. (For examples of Toibo's carving skills see Fagg and Pemberton, Yoruba Sculpture of West Africa 1982:54-55; Thompson Black Gods and Kings 1971:CH 13; 39, 54-55.) Once again, in Ila-Orangun I confronted the same failure of remembrance with respect to carvers; and so did Rosyln Walker in her research in southern Ekiti on the great carver, Olowe of Ise, which led to her entitling one of her chapters "Anonymous has a Name." In most Yoruba towns, carvers, like drummers, were respected, indeed, their powers held in awe. However, what was important for an individual commissioning a sculpture or inheriting carvings from their elders was the ritual object, not the carver as artist. As Chinua Achebe has written, Africans do not collect art or create museums (1984:Forward). They acquire objects for ritual purpose or as signs of social status or political authority. A carver may be honored in his time and remembered for a generation or two but not "collected."

In the area of Ilobu, Erin, Ede, and Oshogbo there were carvers of note: Maku of Erin; his son, Toibo; and Abogunde of Ede. They became the elders and masters of workshops which attracted others to live and work with them-some with considerable talent and others who merely "chopped wood." Beier's brief studies reveal the importance of shrine sculptures and also the level of excellence that the masters and carvers associated with them attained.

The principle deity in Ilobu was orisa Erinle and in Ede orisa Ogun. The Yoruba orisa are all thought to have once been humans who, given their qualities and fame in life, ascended to the status of deities upon their deaths. The same is true for Yoruba kings today. Erinle and Ogun were both famous hunters who in times of war had protected their towns with incredible skill and bravery. Ogun is known as the god of iron and war and is the patron deity of hunters, blacksmiths, and warriors.

His oriki reveal who he is:

Ogun kills on the right and destroys on the right.

Ogun kills on the left and destroys on the left.

Ogun kills suddenly in the house and suddenly in the field.

Ogun kills the child with the iron with which it plays.

Ogun kills in silence.

Ogun kills the thief and the owner of stolen goods.

Ogun kills the owner of the slave-and the slave runs away.

Ogun kills the owner of thirty "iwofa"-and his money, wealth

and children disappear.

Ogun kills the owner of the house and paints the hearth with his blood Ogun is the death who pursues a child until it runs into the bush.

Ogun is the needle that pricks both ends.

Ogun has water but he washed in blood.

Erinle is celebrated as a great hunter who led the king of Ilobu to the present location of the town.

He is firm and strong like an ancient rock

He is clear like the eye of god that does not grow any grass.

Like the earth he will not change.

He puts out the lamp and lets his eye sparkel like fire.

He will turn the barren woman into one who carries a child.

He is the father of our king.

He is the one who looks after my child.

He knows the dry places on earth.

He knows where the river flows,

He knows where the grass is abudant,

Where the large trees shade the river

And the air is cool like the Harmattan.

As a warrior, Ogun can become intoxicated with blood to the point where he turns on his own followers, slautering them. Erinle is the hunter, the provider of food and lives in the river which bears his name. Hence, shrine sculptures celebrating Erinle and Ogun wear the hunter's hair style with a braid of hair down the back of their heads, carry the warrior's spear, ride the warrior's stead, and sometimes is accompanied by a flute player announcing the hunter-warrior's presence. When paired with a female figure, she carries a child on her back, her coiffure is that of the hunter, and, as William Fagg observes "her sculptural presence [is] enhanced by the snake lying quiescent around her neck" (1981:117).

I am inclined to believe that the Christie sculptures are the work of Maku of Erin. They are similar to a pair photographed by Beier outside the Kuse shrine in Ilobu. His notes state that the sculptures "are for Kuse...painted all over with indigo." However, no one knew the name of the carver or date when they were carved or appeared on the Kuse shrine. While strikingly similar, they are not the Kuse carvings. It is clear that the Christie sculptures were not once covered with indigo dye and that the red camood powder that covers their bodies, garments, the horse and the child on the mother's back is the original color with additional touches of strips of white paint. This is not to say that the Kuse and Christie carvings are not by Maku.

An equestrian figure in Drewal, Pemberton, and Abiodun, Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought (1989:fig. 173) is attributed to Maku. In almost every detail it is by the same hand as those being offered by Christie and is remarkably similar to the Kuse shrine figures: the elongated body of the rider, the relationship of the size of the steed and that of the head of the rider, the decorative detail on the tunics, the rider's beard beginning at the base of the ear and following the edge of the chin, the shape of the ears, the bulging eyes surrounded by radiating delicate hatching, and the fullness of the brow. Whoever the carver, the equestrian figure and the woman with child are the works of a master artist.